ostates. The
former, he says, become at once prudent, temperate, modest, gentle, kind,
human, reverential, just, magnanimous, lovers of truth, and superior to
the temptations of wealth and pleasure, whereas the latter are
intemperate, unchaste, unjust, irreverent, low-minded, quarrelsome,
accustomed to falsehood and perjury, and ready to sell their freedom for
sensual pleasures of all kinds.(1369) In the times of Hellenic culture
apostasy made its appearance among the upper classes of the Jews. As the
higher-minded among the heathen world were drawn towards the sublime
monotheistic faith of the Jew, so the pleasure-seeking and worldly-minded
among the Jews were attracted by the allurements of Greek culture to
become faithless to the God of Israel, break away from the law, and
violate the covenant. Especially under Syrian rule, apostasy became a real
danger to the Jewish community, and many measures had to be decided upon
to avert it. The desertion of the ancestral faith was looked upon as
rebellion and treason against God and Israel.(1370) With the rise of the
Christian Church to power and influence the number of apostates increased,
and with it also the danger to the small community of the Jews in the
various lands. In the same measure as the Church made a meritorious
practice of the conversion of the Jews, whether by persuasive means or by
force and persecution, the authorities of Judaism had to provide the Jew
with spiritual weapons of self-defense in the shape of polemical and
apologetic writings,(1371) and to warn him against too close a contact
with the apostate, which was too often fraught with peril for the whole
community. As a number of these apostates became actual maligners of the
Jews under the Roman empire, a special malediction against sectarians, the
so-called _Birkat ha-Minim_, was inserted in the Eighteen Benedictions
under the direction of Gamaliel II.(1372) "Those who have emanated from my
own midst hurt me most," says the Synagogue, referring to herself the
words of the Sulamite in the Song of Songs.(1373) While every other
offender from among the Jewish people is declared to be "brother,"
notwithstanding his sin,(1374) the apostate was declared to be one from
whom no free-will offering was to be accepted,(1375) and to whom the gates
of repentance and the gates of salvation are forever closed.(1376) The
feeling of bitterness against him grew in intensity, as throughout Jewish
history he often played t